Medical Miracles
by JumpinPopTarts
Summary: MxM. Matt and Mello find themselves alone in a strange white world and, with nothing to guide them but their memories, they look back on their short, turbulent lives; the good, the bad, and the things that bound them together.
1. Chapter 1

_**IT'S THREE O'CLOCK IN THE MORNING LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!**_

_**BUT I'M DONE! SO I'M HAPPY!**_

_…*phew*_

_Would it be boastful to say I'm really proud of this piece? It's certainly taken me longer than any other fanfic I've written (that's been of a similar length anyway); about eight hours which, considering most take me less than one, has tested my attention span (normally that of a gnat with ADHD) pretty thoroughly!_

_**This is a MattxMello story, set after the end of the series.** I've been a massive fan of this pairing ever since I first read Death Note, but have never dared write any fanfiction about them before as there are so many good ones around. Also, as both of them, especially Matt, have a very vague character story, I've really tried to give them as realistic a background as possible, whilst still sticking to the plot, and keeping them in character, …and that takes a lot more out of a writer than in the fandoms when the work's all been done for you!_

_**I know I always ask for reviews, but I would be particularly grateful if I got some for this,** as I've put a bit of my soul into it (plus ruined my sleep patterns!), and would love some honest feedback from you guys._

_Anyway, enough of my waffling! I know it's a pretty lengthy oneshot (it's 16 sides of A4 long!) so **I've decided to put it into chapters, so you can peruse at your leisure**._

_**Enjoy!**_

_xJPTx_

oooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo

_So this was their idea of a medical miracle?_

Doctor Aimee Mizaki took another step towards her patient, unconsciously hugging her regulation grey clipboard closer to her chest.

_It looked like Hell itself._

The body on the bed made no sign that it sensed her. From close-up, it was hard to even identify which part of it was flesh; the young skin was so split and swollen, so scarred beyond any hope of healing, that what must once have been a living, laughing teenager was little more than a mass of limbs, studded with drip tubes and reams of bandaging.

It had been twelve hours, and they still couldn't stop the bleeding.

The boy had been wheeled in at four o'clock the previous night, paramedics buzzing like carrion flies, nurses dashing away to ring theatre, anaesthetists, surgeons…. She could still picture their exhausted faces, the harsh hospital strobes casting a hollow pallor over them all.

One of the ambulance crew had blurted out the details;

_Caucasian Male._

_Approx. 18 years of age_

_5'8'', light build_

_No Medi-Bracelet. No Medical file._

Her eyes flicked to the ruined face. The clipboard was digging into her palm.

_No Passport. No Parents…_

_No Name._

A stutter in the bleep of the heart monitor. Her head jerked round to watch it, stiff as a puppet on a string.

_Please…!_

A horrible pause, then-

…No. Nothing. The bleeps gave a tiny hiccup, then resumed their steady pattern.

Dr Mizaki let out a long breath, realising afterwards that she had no idea which scenario she had been begging for; for the boy to regain consciousness, or for him to slip away, and never have to find out about …

She forced her mind away, concentrating instead on the myriad of screens and dials around the boy's bed. She picked a pen from her pocket, racing through the tick-list on her clipboard with the ease of long practise.

She tried not to think about what the information she was jotting actually meant.

_Twenty eight bullets, they'd said._

_Twenty eight._

No heart should have withstood something like that.

Her eyes were brimming. Slowly, she raised a hand and wiped them, focusing all her energy on keeping it steady. She could hear the soft ticking of her watch now; its beat just a fraction faster than the bleeps of the boy's monitor.

_beep…beep…beep…_

Half-four, and she still had the rest of the ward to do.

Dr Mizaki put away her pen and cast one last look at the boy on the bed. She had never been religious, but she found herself breathing a tiny prayer into the sanitised air.

_Beep…beep…beep…_

God help him.

_beep…beep…_

Nobody deserves to die like this.

_-eep_…_beep…_

Please…

…_beep_…

oooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo


	2. Chapter 2

oooooooooooOOOOoooooooooo

_beep…beep…beep_

Matt woke slowly, wriggling his toes, then his fingers, coaxing the life and blood back into them. They tingled grumpily in reply, cramped with lying still too long.

Ugh, he needed a fag. Badly.

Where had it been this time? The Mud Club? Chiques? Or that new place in town that only the hardcore people went to? Jenny's promised she'd take him there, set him up with someone….

His mind drew a blank. Nothing rose out of its depths but more fuzzy whiteness. He felt like an actor on stage as the dry-ice came rolling in. Only someone'd left the switch on too long and it had turned into an avalanche…

Hah. He was in limbo, and all he could think about were fucking_ avalanches_?

_See, Matty, this is what hangovers do to you._

He didn't remember drinking though. Driving somewhere, yes, but _drinking?_ Besides, apart from the dry-ice, there was nothing in his head that actually _hurt_. In fact, he felt oddly weightless, like you do when you've been carrying a heavy bag for miles then try and walk without it.

Maybe he'd just smoked something? Hm. Not unusual, but, again, no memories. Pills? They were always harder to remember, but the taste they left stayed with him for hours….

His lips felt like someone'd stuck tape over them then ripped it off, but they didn't taste _of _anything.

_None of the above, Matty. Next guess._

A groan escaped him. Trust the voice in his head to sound like Mello.

_Matty?_

Strange. Voices in his head didn't normally ask questions.

His eyelids flickered. He realised they were closed.

Where…?

The first crack of light felt like someone had pressed a blade directly onto his eyeball. Matt swore, rolling into a sitting position and cradling his head in his hands.

Fu-_uck_. Whatever he'd taken, he was not taking it again. Ever.

_"Matty."_

A command this time, still in Mello's voice.

Matt'd be damned if he ever ignored a summons from Mello.

He opened his watering eyes.

He saw nothing at first, only whiteness, rolling on and on and on in every direction. Slowly, he managed to make out what might be a horizon (at least, there was a point where the swirling sort of whiteness becomes a still sort of whiteness, but he couldn't be sure), and realised that he was buried up to his chest in what looked like cloud but felt like nothing at all.

He staggered to his feet, dry-ice pouring around his shins like a river. It was flowing quickly behind him, though he couldn't feel any pressure on his legs at all. There was a strange, nudging feeling though, more mental than physical; telling him to turn round, to look where the current is flowing.

What choice did he have but to obey? He turned…

…And there was Mello.

Matt blinked, then scrubbed at his eyes, but the vision refused to fade. There he was, clad in the same leather jacket and trousers that he had been wearing the last time they saw each other. He looked…different though, Matt thought; then, with a sudden jolt, he realised why.

The scar on his face was gone.

The two boys stopped a few metres apart, watching each other curiously, as though waiting for something to fade or change and prove that they were dreaming. Eventually, Mello cocked his head to the side, a slow grin splitting his face.

"Hello Matty." He said.

Matty. Mello hadn't called him Matty for almost four years.

"Hi." He managed after a minute or two. They were both speaking English for the first time since arriving in Japan together, and for a moment its awkwardness is the only thing that bothered Matt. Only after they had stared at each other for another full minute did the obvious question actually surface.

"Where are we?"

"Wish I knew." Mello answered, looking back over his shoulder with the same nonchalance as someone standing in the centre of their hometown and unable to find their favourite café. "I was just starting to get bored when you showed up."

"Showed up?"

"Yeah, you just rose out of the fog. Over there." He pointed vaguely somewhere behind them. "Like Frankenstein or something…" He paused, then looked Matt straight in the eye. "Listen, do you think we're dead? I can't remember much before I woke up here, but I remember the TV in the van I was driving. Something about you and the police. And guns."

Matt didn't answer; the coldness running slowly through his blood gave him all the answer he needed. His memory was returning too, but in pieces, like one of Near's jigsaw puzzles.

_He's in Tokyo, his hands on a foreign steering wheel and watching a motorbike speed into the distance. He can see a woman on the motorbike, with another black-clad rider that he instinctively knows is Mello. He remembers driving again, through air thick with grenade-smoke… but then the pictures become nothing more than blurred snapshots. Bright streets, police lights…a crossroads…opening the car door, and then-_

"They shot me." Matt murmured. "They shot me with my hands above my head."

"Bastards." Mello murmurs. His hands shift to his pocket; a nervous reflex that normally ends in him pulling out another chocolate bar. This time he stops and clenches his fists; either there's no chocolate or he's eaten it already. "Serves you right for surrendering."

"You're a fine one to talk." Matt snaps. "You're up here too."

"Yeah. That bitch Takada got me with the Death Note. I had a full forty seconds of heart-attack to figure that one out." Mello looked down and scuffed his feet.

As Matt watched him, the air between them seemed to shimmer, like the desert in a heat haze.

_A picture swirled out of the murk; the front seat of a van. A pair of familiar hands grip, white-knuckled, to the steering wheel. Matt hears laboured breathing, curses, prayers. The image swings wildly for a minute, then fades into nothing._

"I…" Matt blurted out the moment the picture faded. "I, I just saw your…"

"Yeah, I know." Mello said. He looked pale now, and slightly queasy. "I just saw yours too."

"Oh." Matt hesitated. Discussing deaths seemed too incongruous, even for this weird white limbo. "Do…do you think it's some side-effect of-"

"-Of being dead?" Mello rolled his eyes. "Call me crazy, but I never thought the afterlife'd have fucking symptoms."

"Alright, alright." Matt held up his hands. "Chances are we're dead, alright? Nothing's gonna make sense."

"Good. Now stop theorising or I'll smack you." Matt smiled wryly.

"Some things never change." Mello's eyes narrowed.

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"You've been beating me up since we were little kids, remember? Since the first day you met me."

"You ask for it." Mello's reply was gruff, but he was smiling too. "Fourteen years and you never stopped being a dolt."

"Fourteen years." Matt grinned. "You'd've thought I'd have learned my lesson by then, and stayed the hell away from you." Mello shifted to the other foot and glared at him.

The drifting whiteness was starting to change colour; shimmering, solidifying. Another memory began to form between them. Just before they were enveloped completely, Matt heard Mello mutter under his breath.

"Shut up, you."

ooooooooooOOOOOOOOOoooooooooo


	3. Chapter 3

_ooooOOOOoooo_

_Matt is four. It's April and cold, the wind stirring the branches of the old cherry tree in Wammy's garden. He's sitting up among them; high up, so the other kids can't get him._

_He can see something yellow on the other side of the wall_.

_It's moving fast. Fast enough for parts of it to swing, like a tassel on a scarf. For a while he is bewitched, leaning out of the tree so he can have a better look. The wall is high and in the way; he can only see the thing's yellow tassel-top, everything else is hidden by the bricks._

_The Yellow Thing is following the path from the back door of Wammy's house into the garden. The path splits in two a few metres from his tree, where the wall ends. One path goes away, to the front gate. The other one goes under the tree. _

_Matt isn't sure whether he wants the Yellow Thing to go past him or not. It's more interesting to watch it, and not let it get too close._

_The Yellow Thing is nearly there._

_Matt's fingers dig into the bark of the tree, his little feet swinging like tiny pendulums. _

_The Yellow Thing steps into view._

_Matt frowns._

_It's only a little boy. Like him, only with a black top and green eyes and weird pale skin, like L's._

_He leans forward a little, but he can't see anything else. The Yellow-Thing-that's-actually-a-boy is almost under the tree and all he can see is the top of his head. It's all shiny in the sun._

_He leans again and loses his grip. A shower of twigs falls out of the tree, landing square on that little golden head. The head stops, a white hand scrubbing the tree bark from its hair._

_Then the head tilts back, like a sunflower following the sun, and suddenly there is a face looking up at him. It is round, with a pointed chin, thin brows and an upturned nose so much like a girl's that it makes him laugh._

_The Yellow Thing frowns. Suddenly it does not look like a sunflower. _

_It looks __**scary**__._

The vision faded slowly, and Matt began to laugh.

"You beat me so hard that day, d'you remember?" he ran a hand through his hair. "Dragged me all the way to Rodger's office by my fringe. I bet I still have the scar somewhere."

"Serves you right for thinking I looked like a girl." Matt's smile faded.

"I never told you you looked like a girl though. How did you know?" Mello shrugged

"I know things here that I didn't know before. Back then I was just pissed off because you looked so damn happy."

"…And 'cause I messed up your hair." Mello scowled.

"Shut it, you. Who gives a shit about hair?"

"Says the guy who's been stalking Misa Amane for the last month."

"She's a girl." Matt just grinned, another memory rising up through the dry ice.

"And you've never fussed in your life because you're so damn manly, I suppose?" Mello's eyes narrowed…then he burst out laughing. He'd read Matt's thoughts again.

"Oh yes, bring that one up." He said, rolling his eyes "I could use a laugh."

_Matt is eight, sitting on the floor in one of Wammy's House's many rooms, his feet crammed into white boots two sizes too small._

_He's also wearing one of Linda's dresses._

_And Mello is plaiting his hair._

"_Keep still, you bastard." Mello is muttering. It's 'bastard' everything at the moment; he heard one of the big kids saying it and suddenly, its his new favourite word_. _Matt tries to obey, crossing his legs tighter and stuffing his hands into his lap…_

_But Mello's plait is_ tight_. And it _hurts_._

"_If you don't stop, I'll go find Near." Matt pouts, but holds himself still. Near, the relatively new arrival to Wammy's House, is already its top student and Mello detests him more every day. If he chooses Near over Matt, then their friendship would be irreparably over._

_And Matt's life, as he knows it, would be too._

_Mello is not wearing one of Linda's dresses. Oh no. He bought one himself, from the illegal e-bay account Matt set up for him as a seventh birthday present. Unlimited credit as standard, of course. He is crouching behind Matt, and as he moves, Matt can hear the soft crush of velvet and taffeta beneath his knees. There are buckles and laces and tiny heeled shoes, all done up personally (and with a disconcerting amount of skill) by Mello himself. It's in red, of course, and black, Mello's current favourite colours. Matt sighs._

_Only Mello could look badass with ribbons in his hair._

_Matt, on the other hand, looks like a bewildered Spaniel with a pile of doilies on its head (Mello says it's called a '_fascinator_', Matt tells him he's a bastard and gets his hair pulled for his trouble)._

"_There. Done." The pinching fingers withdraw from his scalp and he hears Mello get up, pattering out of range in his shiny red shoes. There is a scraping sound and Mello reappears, dragging one of the full-length mirrors Linda uses when she wants to draw a self-portrait. The ones that everyone is expressly, _expressly_ forbidden to take out of the art rooms. _

"_Take a look." Mello demands, stepping back and putting his hands on his skinny hips. Matt looks up at him from a heap of pink cotton and white lace, hoping his expression is sufficiently desperate. _

"_I don't want to l-"_

"_Yes you do." Mello drops his pose and marches over to him, grabbing him by the ears and forcing his head round so that he's looking at the mirror. Matt sees a pair of watering green eyes and feels his stomach sink into the carpet._

"_Well? What d'you think?"_

_Matt doesn't say what he thinks (the metaphor involves an orang-utan in drag and would most likely cost him all of his remaining hair). Instead, he stares up and past his own reflection, where Mello is crouching expectantly._

_It's Linda's fault that they're both doing this, Matt remembers sullenly. She was the one who asked Mello if he would model for her, and if she could paint him in a dress. Apparently (from what he could gather between Mello's bursts of indignant rage), she thought Mello 'would look prettier than all the girls at Wammy's put together'._

_So Mello had set out to prove her wrong._

_Matt looked up at the serious round face, all soft angles, long lashes and delicate blonde brows (even though they were currently knitted together in a scowl). The red lace in his hair brought out the pink in his china-skinned complexion, the black emphasising the dark notes in his deep green eyes. A smile quirks Matt's lips._

_Mello couldn't have failed more completely if he'd tried._

"_See you DO like it!" Mello is on his feet in a sweep of red velvet, whirling round the room and cackling. "We've proved her wrong, Matty! Let's celebrate!"_

_They take a couple of photos (for Linda, though they quickly appear in the diaries of every girl in Wammy's…and some of the boys') and fuss around for a bit, doing silly poses and trying to walk in Mello's heels (Matt is proud to find that he fails completely). Only once the dresses are packed away and Mello has stormed off to raid the fridge for chocolate, does Matt have time to sit back and think (as well as picking bits of fascinator from his hair). He pictures the two of them again, sat, framed, in front of the mirror; his own awkward face, blushing furiously, and the vision crouching behind him, as perfect as a doll. _

_But even then, Matt remembers the threads of golden hair sticking up at angles, the bitten nails, the boy's scowl and the scraped knees hidden beneath the swathe of cloth. Mello might have suited a dress disturbingly well, but no one would ever mistake him for a girl. The death grip he'd had on Matt's shoulder proved that._

_Mello is pretty, Matt thinks. But not pretty like girls. Mello Pretty._

_He thinks this for a long time, trying to work out what it means. But, like L's algorithms, it all gets tangled up and he has to forget about it and play Pokemon on his Gameboy instead._

"You were such a sap when you were a kid." Mello said, but Matt could see the smug smile lurking at the corner of his mouth.

"Nothing's changed." He said. "At least I never dressed up as a girl again, unlike some people."

"That was one time!" Mello snapped, then averted his eyes. "…alright more than once."

"Hey." Matt broke into a grin. "If something made _me_ look that hot, I'd wear it more often too." Mello snorted.

"It didn't help with the girly jokes though."

"No." Matt laughed "No, I guess it didn't!"

"Still, better than how it was at Wammy's." Mello's smile faded. "All the rules and regulations…the only good thing about being dead is knowing that I'll never, ever have to go back there."

"Even if you were L?"

"If I was L I'd tear the damn place to the ground." Mello hissed, and with such conviction that Matt was taken aback.

"It wasn't all bad." He said quietly. "We had our favourite spots, remember?" Mello paused for a moment, then saw the same image Matt did and started to smile.

"Well," he said "I guess I'd keep that bit, and nuke the rest. Deal?" Matt rolled his eyes.

"Deal."

oooOOooo


	4. Chapter 4

_You know what? You lot are so cruel. This has got so many alerts and faves but reviews? Nada. I so badly want to put up something I spent so freaking long on, but this is officially my least successful fic. Ever._

_Please enjoy anyway. : )_

_**NB: What Matt tells Mello about L and Near is entirely from inside my own head. It's what I wish happened (I absolutely loathe Near).** _

_ooooooooOOOOOOOooooooo_

_He is ten, cold and tired, his back propped up against the radiator in the Wammy's House common room._

_He is watching Mello._

_By now he's worked out what Mello Pretty is. And that he likes it._

_And that he's not supposed to._

_He's also learned that he is not the only one who's noticed. Today is Valentine's Day and, whilst most kids just have their usual, single chocolate from Rodger, Mello is sitting next to a little pile of them (half, admittedly, are already empty wrappers). Some chocolates have handwritten notes attached. With kisses. With hearts._

_All from girls, of course._

_Cards were another thing boys weren't supposed to do._

_No that Mello seems to care anyway. He is sitting in his favourite armchair with his nose in _The Bell Jar_, by Sylvia Plath, his skinny legs drawn up under him so that the soft fabric appears to be slowly swallowing him. His eyes skim the text, averaging fifteen seconds a page (Matt knows this well. He also knows that Near averages thirteen seconds.). _

_But it's okay to know that; the two of them had a read-off one night after class with every kid in the House watching them. It's common knowledge. Mello broke two mirrors afterwards, and had to be sent to his room, rattling all the picture frames as he stomped up the stairs. _

_What it's probably not okay to know is exactly how many times Mello has worn that black sweater, or what it smells like, or the exact shade that his cheeks go when he has worn it for too long and is starting to get hot._

_Matt knows all of these things._

_What Matt wants to know is why Mello is reading _The Bell Jar_ again, which is also okay to want to know, because he never reads a book more than once (why waste the time? Plus, he has to keep up with Near) and this is the third time he's had it out. It's starting to look dog-eared._

_What it's probably not okay to want to know is exactly what it is in that book that makes his eyes burn like stars, or why it makes him chew his lip so that it turns that beautiful shade of cherry-pink._

…_Or how Matt can make him burn and blush like that without cards or hearts or XOXOs._

"_Matty?" He blinks, then flushes bright red. Somehow Mello has put down his book without him noticing. Now he's glaring across the room, probably wondering why he's being stared at._

_There's a second or two of silence, in which Mello waits expectantly and Matt wishes he could spontaneously combust. Then Mello sighs and thumps the space beside him in the armchair. Shakily, Matt gets up and slides down next to him. There's enough room for two, just, which means they're sandwiched together, shoulder to knee. Mello's skin is warm. His breath smells like bubblegum. There are butterflies having a rave in Matt's stomach._

"_What are you thinking about, Matty?" Mello asks. "Your face is all screwed up. Like this." He wrinkles his nose, crossing his eyes and wriggling until Matt starts to giggle._

"_I was…" Matt begins, realising halfway through that he has no idea how to end the sentence ( definitely not with the truth). "er…wond'ring why you're reading that again?"_

_Mello shrugs._

"_I just like it. Rodger wanted me to write an essay on it; the Affect of Patriarchal Discourse or whatever, so I did. But it's not 'cause of that. This girl, Esther," he stabs a finger at the page. "She's really lonely, and different, and…and when I'm reading it…" he trails off. On paper, Mello can out-smart and out-word every lecturer, professor and professional on the planet (apart from Near), but verbally, he still speaks like a ten year old kid. He doesn't talk about feelings._

_He's not supposed to._

_Matt, now redder than a postbox, reaches over and pats Mello's shoulder._

"_You're not lonely, Mello." He says. "You've got me."_

_Mello snorts and wipes his nose. _

"_S'pose so." _

_And that, Matt knows, is the best 'thank you' he's ever going to get._

_Allowing himself a tiny smile, he leans back on the arm of the chair and closes his eyes. He hears Mello hiss in annoyance._

"_No, lean this way." Without taking his eyes off the page, Mello reaches out and grabs a chunk of Matt's hair, tugging him sideways so that Matt's head rests on his shoulder. Matt squeaks but lets himself be pulled, adjusting himself slightly so that he's moulded to Mello's side, his head nestled under the other boy's chin. Mello waits, then, giving Matt's hair a brief ruffle, goes back to his book._

_Mello's shoulder is bony. His blonde hair tickles Matt's nose and gets into his eyes. He smells like sweat and wool and chocolate._

_Matt has never been happier in his life._

"I'd almost forgotten that book." Mello murmured as the vision died. "One of the best I've ever read. I even equalled Near on the essay we wrote on it, not that it was enough to change the rankings…"

"You still care about that?" Matt said suddenly, startling himself with the strength of his voice. "After all these years of obsession, doubt and misery, after you _died _trying to better him, you _still_ care about beating Near?" Mello's eyes, when they looked at him, were blank as black holes.

"Yes."

"But _why _Mell? Why can't you see you were better than him? Everyone else could! Hell, the only reason why both of you were named successors was because L's two laws conflicted. He'd said that only the highest scoring student could take his place, but he'd put _your _name on his will. He'd wanted you, Mello."

"Shut up."

"You wonder how I knew? I looked it up on the computers. Broke the firewall easily enough. He thought you were the best, Mello. You were always the one who dealt with _people_ best. Always the one who could win them over to your side, make them trust you, learn their secrets. It was you who had the talent L himself lacked, you who-"

"Shut_ up_." Mello's voice had gone hard and cold, like a slap to the face. But Matt didn't stop; the words were coming on their own now, wild, scorching, unstoppable. He couldn't shut up even if he had wanted to.

"And you know what else? You know what else, Mello? You _did _beat Near. You beat him to the one thing he wanted most, and you know what that thing was?!"

"_If you don't_-"

"It was ME, you idiot! Near wanted _me_! Since we were ten, before even, he'd envied you because you knew me. How do I know? He told me himself, the night you left! He was waiting when I came back in, he was there when I cried, he-"

"Stop." Mello groaned. "Stop it, stop it, stop it-"

"But I said NO, Mello!" Matt shouted across him. "Because he could never be you. Don't you get that? He could never replace you. _No one_ could replace you-"

"Shut UP, Matt."

"NO!" Matt roared. "Mello, he-"

"Stop _LYING _TO ME!" Mello screamed. "I can't stand it! Stand you! Stand him! Shut UP!"

"Mello-"

"STOP IT!"

Mello flew at him like a tiger from its cage, so fast that even the white smog parted at his feet, scattering like a flurry of snow. Matt stiffened despite himself, his fists clenched, waiting for the blow. But Mello never reached him. Instead he froze at the very last second, near enough for his breath to fan across Matt's cheek. He was so close; breathing heavily, his fist pulled back, his eyes shining with rage and tears…

Then the life went out of him. The fist jerked back to his side and his head fell down onto his chest, his eyes rooting themselves to the floor. By the time he raised them the tears were gone. Instead there was an emptiness, a helplessness, that was even worse than tears.

"You can't hit me here, can you?" Matt asked after a while. Mello shook his head.

"Can't hit anything. Every time I do I just end up facing the other damn way." His voice cracked then, twin tears bursting from his eyes and down his cheeks. His knees gave way and he buckled into the fog. Matt sank with him, reaching out helplessly, longing to grab him, to hold him.

But, just as Mello had said, when Matt reached out, a strange force pushed him back; like the pull of like-poles of a magnet.

All he could do was sit close and watch Mello as he cried, near enough to smell his hair, feel the warmth of his skin, to lose himself in watching him until he forgot his own feelings, forgot everything else. Until Mello became his whole world.

This was what they had always done. When they were alone, or angry or scared, they would bury themselves in each other, losing every other feeling save the carnal need to hold onto something, someone. They had held each other and, by doing that, held their hearts, and their sanity, together.

Nothing about touching Mello has even been gentle, but that made moments with him even more precious. They echoed for days, weeks afterwards, leaving everything sharper, clearer, like the sky after the hurricane.

Matt wouldn't trade those moments for the world.

oooooOOOOOooooo


	5. Chapter 5

_ooooOOOOoooo_

_He is fourteen, with his back against the same radiator. This time, he's between it and a very heavy sofa. The common room is empty, apart from Mello._

_Mello is kissing Matt._

_Matt is kissing back._

_It's the holidays, and any Wammy's kid with somewhere to go has gone there. Rodger is in town with Near and all the other well-behaved ones with nowhere to go. A misdemeanour that morning involving a water-butt and one of Cook's cats means that neither Matt nor Mello are allowed to join them. Instead they are confined in the house, alone, supposedly reflecting on what they have done and learning that bad behaviour doesn't pay off._

_Needless to say, they're ignoring their orders._

_What they are learning, however, is a lot more about each other._

_Kissing Mello is like kissing a dragon, Matt thinks; all angles, lithe curves and bared teeth (these are currently occupied in the groove were Matt's neck meet his shoulder, making sure that every last of inch of him has melted into putty). It's been a long time since cuddling on the armchair, and a few clandestine internet searches have given them a good idea of what the next steps up entail._

_Of course, in true Wammy's Kids style, they're proving themselves prodigies in every single level._

_Mello isn't old enough to have tried leather yet, but Matt can still feel the warm, round muscles flex under his hands. His fingers drift across a flat white stomach. Mello groans into his mouth._

_They're too young for this. Both of them know it and neither of them care. Wammy's kids are ten years ahead of average mentally, who could say that their hormones hadn't accelerated to match?_

_Matt certainly isn't complaining, his hands are exploring every contour he's dreamed about in the last year, and more he hadn't dared think about. Mello's yellow hair is in his face, tumbling down as he crawls deeper into Matt's lap. The musk of it sets his senses on fire._

'_Matty Matty Matty.' Mello murmurs between kisses. 'Matty do you love me?'_

"I wondered for years why you didn't answer me." Mello said slowly. His voice was quiet but his eyes stared straight into Matt's, unmoving, unblinking. "Got myself really fucked up over it. Didn't sleep. That was before all this though, before this place, where I can read your mind. Don't worry." Oh those eyes. Matt felt as though they were twin points of fire, scouring him right to the core. "I know now."

"You weren't exactly crystal clear either." Matt's voice was barely above a whisper. "The amount of things I did for you, just to make you smile, make you laugh."

_I would have done anything for you. Anything._

He doesn't say it, but the thought hung in the air. Judging by the sudden sadness in Mello's eyes, he knew that he'd sensed the words without needing to hear them aloud.

"When you left…" The words are out before Matt had time to think, spilling from him like a terrible weight falling from his shoulders. "When you left, Mello, I…"

_I couldn't stand it. _

_I couldn't speak, couldn't laugh, couldn't even eat. I moped for days, forgot my work, failed tests normal kids my age could pass. I almost died, Mello. _

_I think I did, in a way._

"Nothing." He said at last. "I was nothing, after that."

_He is fifteen, lanky, awkward, his bad haircut crammed under a battered ushanka. It is half one in the morning._

_He is sneaking out._

_He lets himself out the back door and makes his way to where the garden wall is lowest and easiest to climb. The old cherry tree gives him enough shade to stay hidden from the house, but he can feel it watching him, old memories sighing, disappointed, in its leaves. The cold air bites his lungs; he has to spark up the moment his feet touch the ground on the other side. He's only been smoking a few months, since Mello left, but already the nicotine seeps like oxygen through his blood. Deadening. Delicious._

_He reaches the churchyard in minutes, his breath rising in icy columns above his head. There's isn't a single house light on at this hour; he feels like the only living person in the world._

_Mello is waiting in the shadow of the angel cenotaph, its wings casting sharp shadows across his face. He is tired; there are new lines beneath his eyes and at the corners of his lips. His smile is no longer easy._

_He has never looked so beautiful._

_Mello unpeels himself from the shadow as Matt approaches, his smile wry. He starts to say something but Matt is too quick, seizing him with the same animalistic sense of completion that he gets when sparking up, only one hundred thousand times stronger._

_Nicotine is his drug. Mello is his lifeblood._

_Mello curves into him like a cat rubbing against its master. They fold against the angel, losing themselves in each other's mouths, each other's hands. By the time they pull away Mello is breathing hard, and Matt's lips are starting to bruise. Matt's eyes are burning behind his goggles; it feels like something is breaking inside him, cracks running up every artery. In a moment he's going to fall apart, spinning away in pieces like a shattered teacup._

'_I'm going to miss you, Matt.' Mello says._

'_Don't do that.'_

'_What?'_

'_Don't call me Matt like you're going to leave.'_

_Mello smiles. His face looks like marble in the moonlight._

'_But I am leaving.' _

_A rustle of pockets; a tiny oblong card, striped orange, held up so he can see. The ticket reads CHILD ONE-WAY. Mello has his thumb over the destination. _

_Matt memorises the serial number._

_The train leaves in two hours. _

"You should have covered up that serial number." Matt murmured as the picture melted away. "I tracked you for the next three years."

Mello barked out a laugh, tiny lines splitting his new, perfect skin.

"You thought I didn't know that?" He buried his head in his hands, his grin fixed, almost mad. "I fucking let you see that on purpose!"

"Then why cover up the destination?"

"Because it would have been a plea then, wouldn't it? '_Please Matty, come and fetch me, don't let me leave_.'?" Matt stared at him.

"You mean you didn't _want _to?" Mello snorted.

"Wammy's hardly teaches you to fend for yourself. I'd aced twenty A-Levels and a PHD, but had no idea how to work a fucking _washing machine_. I wasn't exactly dying to go."

"But then…?"

"Because of Near." Mello scowled. "And L. He was dead, Kira was killing millions and I was expected to sit there and watch that little albino freak do some jigsaws? Screw that."

"You could have taken me with you."

"That was another reason why I left the serial number." Mello said, forcing Matt to look at him. "But you never bothered, so and I had to come and fetch you."

"And now you make it sound like it was my fault!"

"It was!" Mello snapped. "No one kissed me for three _years,_ Matty, though God knows some of the bums I met wanted to. No one even knew my real name. I went without you, without L and Rodger and Watari, everyone I'd cared about, to go after Kira. The case, the mafia…it took everything." He paused, swallowing hard. "In the end, I had nowhere to go but backwards."

"Into my waiting arms." Matt finished, unable to keep the bitter note out of his voice. Mello broke off and shot him a sidelong glance.

"What, you're complaining?" he smirked "After all those intimate nights in front of a surveillance screen? Those Love Hotels? All that kinky make-up sex?"

Matt couldn't help it, he was laughing again.

"There weren't any Love Hotels, or enough make-up sex, and you know it."

"But what we had was good, right?" It had been meant as a joke, but neither of them mustered more than a smile. In the end, the case had consumed their whole lives, encompassing all needs but the most basic; food and sleep, and often not enough of either. Sometimes they had lived in shifts; not seeing each other for nights and days on end. But somehow, miraculously, there had been days when that had changed. Short hours, snatched kisses, never enough but almost. When Matt looked back on the Kira years these days were the ones that stood out, that glittered with life and colour, like gulps of oxygen to a slowly drowning man.

"Yes." Matt murmured after a while. "What we had was good."

oooOOOooo


	6. Chapter 6

Okay, this is the last bit.

Just thought I'd leave a note to say that **this chapter is at the top of the teen bracket**, so those of you who get squeamish about these things look away (and those who have an odd fetish for that sort of this, go ahead and read on!)

_**ooooOOOOoooo**_

_It's exactly one week ago, and Matt is lying, shirtless, on the crumpled bed of some cheap Tokyo hotel. A fan rotates lazily on the ceiling, wafting the last dregs of his cigarette smoke into the corners of the room. It mingles with his piles of surveillance equipment. Every screen is on. Blank, blue, waiting._

_Mello still isn't home._

_He must have dozed, because the next thing he knows it's dark outside and someone is thumping around in their tiny plastic kitchen. He hears the thunk of the fridge door opening and closing, then the sharp crackle of chocolate wrapping being ripped back. Finally, he hears a quick snap, like a broken neck, and a deep, gratified groan that reverberates right down into the pit of his stomach._

"_Mell?" He asks, his voice slurred with sleep. The kitchen door opens and a familiar figure lounges onto its frame. Even beneath cheap lights, with his livid scars and slept-in clothes, Mello is beautiful. Matt watches him raise his bar of chocolate to his lips, all-too-aware of the fact that that movement causes his tight leather vest to ride up, exposing a tantalising inch of white flesh. _

_Matt's blood begins to tingle._

_Mello catches the look and, narrowing his eyes only slightly, pauses, with the chocolate bar held inches from his lips. Slowly, watching Matt intently, he draws his tongue along the length of it, careful to take in every contour, smiling as he does so. The flash of white teeth makes Matt's heart stutter, then hammer like a drum._

"_Mmmm…" His groan is barely audible but Mello hears it anyway. With another vampire grin, he pushes himself off the doorframe and sashays into the room, giving Matt time to appreciate the swing of his hips, his long legs, his chiselled chest._

_The bed creaks as he crawls onto it, making his way up until he perches directly above Matt. The crucifix that he always wears swings down from his slender neck, dangling between them, fracturing the light of the room into a thousand rainbow rays._

_Matt is bewitched. He lies there, barely daring to move, to breathe; every atom of him drawn to this vision, this miracle. An angel bending over him, smiling, dressed in the very colour and texture of sin._

_With another grin, the 'angel' lowers himself a little, so that his lower half is poised perfectly, just above the fly of Matt's jeans._

_This concentrates his attention wonderfully._

"_Did you miss me, Matt?" Mello croons, lowering himself another tiny fraction. Matt gasps and squirms. His hands itch to move, to reach out, to touch, but he knows that Mello always has to make the first move. The handcuffs in the drawer by the bed are there for a reason, after all._

"_M-Mello…" so much for being the masculine one; his voice is almost cracked with need. It's been ages since they did this; Mello never does things by halves, which means no sex on missions. Ever. _

_The heavens must be smiling on him today. Either them, or Kira. It's hard to tell who's god and who isn't any more._

_Mello laughs. _

"_You're always so obedient, you know that?" he dips his head so that his lips almost, almost, touch Matt's. At the last minute he pulls away, moving instead to the line of his jaw, leaving a trail back to his earlobe, then down along his jugular vein. As he descends, his kisses become harder, the lips drawing back to expose his teeth. Matt whimpers and writhes beneath him, almost mad with pleasure._

"_Do you want to touch me?" Mello asks, as though with idle curiosity. His mouth is now on Matt's collarbone. Matt jerks his head 'yes', his breath bursting out in gusts. His vision is starting to mist over._

_Yes Mello. Yes oh yes oh __**Yes.**_

"_Go on then..." Mello purrs, straightening up so that their faces are parallel again, their breath mixing, hot, in the stifling air. –_

**ooooooOOOOOoooo**

"_Touch me_."

Matt blinked and the vision dissipated. Suddenly the real Mello was standing in front of him, standing close… _very_ close. He has to tilt his head back to see, his lipsslightly parted, a flush decorating his bony cheeks.

_OhGodIwanttokisshimsodamnMUCH._

His hands reached out, craving the warmth of Mello's skin, the curve in the small of his back, the point of his shoulder, the soft hairs on the back of his neck…

…but again they are turned away. Matt groaned in frustration. The only thing more powerful than his drive to hold Mello was the supernatural entity turning him away. He would give anything to overcome it right now, _anything_…

Suddenly Mello stiffened, an idea zinging through his head so bright that it made Matt's own head spin and his hair stand on end.

"I know why I can't touch you." Mello whispered suddenly. "It's because you're not dead."

"What?"

"You're not dead." Mello stepped back, looking Matt up and down. "Yet. You're…more solid…look, compare our arms." He held out a hand. Sure enough, the mist seemed to swirl through Mello's skin, but curled around Matt's, as though only the latter had enough substance to part it.

"I figured it had to be you." Mello was saying. "The Death Note's a pretty foolproof way to die and, in all the memories we've been having, you've been the one with the strongest influence on them. You've got the strongest connection to them. To earth."

"And here was me thinking philosophy was your least favourite subject."

"Still got an A though, didn't I?" Mello wrinkled his nose. "The main issue is to figure out what's still holding you to the ground. What's keeping you alive."

"You make it sound like we need hunt it down and destroy it." Matt said. "Maybe I don't want to die yet."

"Matt, if you came round you'd probably be executed anyway for aiding Kira." Mello's voice was frank, uncompromising. "Near's probably caught him by now. The bastard. But that's not my real point." He stepped closer again. "Matty, the reason why you're here is probably because something helping you to live…I saw you on that screen. You took twenty-whatever bullets. No one walks away after that."

"I know." Matt's voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. His eyes stung, his chest aching as though something was pulling it apart from the inside. Distantly, he realised that he could hear the sound of his heartbeat. Something about it seemed odd; mechanical almost, and very weak.

_beep…beep…beep…_

His heart is keeping him grounded.

His heart is dragging him down.

**"_let go."_**

The words are whispered. He wasn't sure whether he said it, or Mello, or something else entirely, but every fibre of his being melted at the sound of them.

Matt had always been obedient, after all.

The steady beat began to fade, shrinking to a distant pound, then a soundless pulse, getting slower and slower and slower…

_And then…_

His vision was starting to blur, the hard lines of his body softening, like watercolours on an artist's palette. He looked across at Mello and saw that he too was dissolving, his shape now more a mass of colour and light than solid flesh.

"Matty?" What remained of Mello's mouth moved, the voice it created echoing strangely, as though already spoken over a great distance. "Matty, I think I'm going."

"Wait." He stepped forward without thinking, his arms, spun half from whatever essence made him Matt, half from the white mist, reaching out in front of him. "I'm coming with you."

"Good old Matty." Mello murmured. "Following me again. One last time."

"Where are we going?"

"You know what? I don't know." Mello's laugh was like sunshine, though Matt couldn't hear it, not properly, he felt it seep through him, warming him to his very core. "I guess we'll find out when we get there."

Mello stretched out a hand, and Matt, with only the slightest pause, took it.

This time there is no repulsion, no strange force keeping them apart. They melted together, one mind, one heart, one soul, and as they did the mist rose up around them, fresh and sparkling like ocean spray. They leaned together, their foreheads touching, their eyes fluttering closed. And then, just before everything dissolved completely, and things like time and boundaries cease to matter, Matt whispered four more words, one last time.

"Mello." He said. "I love you."

**oooOOOooo**

_beep…beep…beep_

Dr Mizaki sat at the bottom of the hospital bed, staring for one last time at the face of the curious, still nameless, boy. It had been two weeks now, nearly three, and with no papers, no parents and no improvement….

With a small shudder, she took the clipboard from its familiar place, hugged against her chest, and set it aside. Her hands huddled in her empty lap. Small, white, helpless.

_beep…beep…beep…_

Shizuka, one of the junior doctors who hadn't yet learned any better, stood ready by the life support machine. She had a quiet face, but a hard one, and she was waiting for Dr Mizaki.

All it would take was a nod.

_beep…beep…be-_

…

Silence. Dr Mizaki looked up sharply, her eyes flying to Shizuka, who was staring in bewilderment at the machine beside the bed. The tiny green line, which had chronicled the heartbeat so faithfully until this moment, now lay flat, emitting a low, dead, tone.

"I…I don't understand!" Shizuka was saying, her small hands fussing over the instruments, checking dials, tapping screens, switching buttons. "All the machines are working fine but, but-"

"He's gone." Dr Mizaki murmured. Her hands, which had formed a tense ball in her lap, suddenly relaxed, falling outwards like the petals of a flower. "He's finally at peace."

"But Doctor, the machines-"

"Sometimes, Shizuka," Dr Mizaki said "Machines are not the only answer." She got to her feet, picking up her clipboard and tucking it beneath her arm. As she turned to go, she caught sight of the face of her patient, and felt something soften deep inside her chest. It was only slight, and doubtless could be explained away as the effects of the scarring or a trick of the eye but…when she looked at that face, she could have sworn the lips were curved up ever so slightly, in a final, quiet smile.

The boy had made his choice.

He was at peace.

At last.

**oooOOOooo**


End file.
